Evanston Symphony Orchestra

The ballet is based on the Russian folk tale of the Firebird, which Igor Stravinsky used as inspiration in his score. The Firebird ballet tells the story of Prince Ivan who defeats the evil Kastchei with the help of the Firebird, who offers one of her enchanted feathers to Prince Ivan after he spares her life while hunting in the forest. The feather is later used by Prince Ivan to summon the Firebird when he needs her help as Kastchei’s creatures chase after him.

Ave Verum Corpus has been hailed through the years as one of classical music’s great masterworks, a testament to Mozart’s incredible ability to create powerfully emotional works. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the motet is that it reaches this emotional depth over the course of just 46 measures and through incredible simplicity. It was once famously described by Artur Schnabel as “too simple for children and too difficult for adults.”

Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, “Resurrection,” by Gustav Mahler is as big as its name. The massive work, which the Evanston Symphony Orchestra will play in its last concert of the season on June 11, is grand in all directions: scope, intensity and length.

Gustav Mahler was born at Kalischt near the Moravian border of Bohemia on July 7, 1860, and died in Vienna on May 18, 1911. Mahler originally wrote the first movement of his Symphony No. 2 in 1888 as a “symphonic poem” entitled Todtenfeier (“Funeral Rites”). He wavered for five years about whether to make Todtenfeier the beginning of a symphony, and it was not until the summer of 1893 that he composed the second and third movements. The finale and a revision of the first movement followed in the spring and summer of 1894.

Although there is no doubt that the "New World" is the most popular of Antonin Dvořák's nine symphonies, most musicologists and Dvořák scholars are in agreement that his greatest symphony is the Seventh.

The Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor stands apart in the Brahms’ canon. It was his only double concerto, and his last work for orchestra.

Thank two trends of the 19th century for the high-spirited, rollicking dances on our June program. Dance-style pieces for piano four-hands (a single piano played by two pianists) and compositions inspired by Europe’s minority culture, particularly the Roma (Gypsy) culture, were all the rage.

Ko-Eun Yi was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. While no one in her family is a musician — her father is a consultant for start-up businesses and her mother spends significant time as a ­volunteer — her parents love music and there was always a lot of it in their home. When Ko-Eun’s brother, who is four years older, began piano lessons, three-year-old Ko-Eun was drawn to the piano, very curious about the “sound box” and amazed by the magic coming out of it. She said that even at that young age she could feel how the sound transformed the atmosphere of the room.